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11

THE GIRLS CAN GET A LITTLE DARK AT TIMES

The Great Big Book of Death, as it turned out, wasn’t that big, and certainly wasn’t that coh it a dozen ti to find some reference to any of the stuff covered, but all of the es boiled down to this:

1 Congratulations, you have been chosen to act as Death It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it It is your duty to retrieve soul vessels fro and see them on to their next body If you fail, Darkness will cover the world and Chaos will reign

2 Soo, the Luht and darkness, ceased to be Since then, Forces of Darkness have been trying to rise from below You are all that stands between them and destruction of the collective soul of humanity

3 In order to hold off the Forces of Darkness, you will need a number two pencil and a calendar, preferably one without pictures of kitties on it

4 Names and numbers will come to you The number is how many days you have to retrieve the soul vessel You will know the vessels by their crilow

5 Don’t tell anyone what you do, or dark forces, etc etc etc

6 Peopleyour Death duties, so be careful crossing the street You are not immortal

7 Do not seek others Do not waver in your duties or the Forces of Darkness will destroy all that you care about

8 You do not cause death, you do not prevent death, you are a servant of Destiny, not its agent Get over yourself

9 Do not, under any circumstances, let a soul vessel fall into the hands of those from below - because that would be bad

A few ain alone with Lily She asked hiot a nuue! Asher, hello, Forces of Darkness - "

"If the world without this Lu a pencil with one-grade-harder lead is going to cast us all into the abyss, then maybe it’s time"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Lily chanted like she was trying to bring a spooked horse under control "It’s one thing for me to be all nihilistic and stuff, for me it’s a fashion statement, I have the outfits for it You can’t be all horny for the grave wearing your stupid Savile Row suits"

Charlie was proud of her for recognizing that he earing one of his expensive secondhand Savile Rows She was learning the trade in spite of herself

"I’ afraid," he said "I’ve dealt with the Forces of Darkness or whatever, Lily, and you knohat, we’re one and one"

"Should you be telling me this? I mean, the book said - "

"I think I’m different than what the book says, Lily The book says that I don’t cause death, but there have been t that have died more or less because ofme this? As you have pointed out many times, I am a kid, and wildly irresponsible It’s wildly irresponsible, right? I’ that closely"

"You’re the only one who knows," Charlie said "And you’re seventeen now, not a kid, you’re a young woman now"

"Don’t fuck with et another piercing, take X until I’m dehydrated like a mummy, talk on my cell phone until the battery is dead, then find souy and suck him until he cries"

"So, it will be like a Friday?" Charlie said

"What I do with my weekends is my own business"

"I know!"

"Well, then shut up!"

"I’ afraid, Charlie!"

They both looked away, eh the day’s receipts while Charlie pretended to be looking for so satchel and Jane called hisup from the receipts

"S’okay," Charlie said "Me, too"

Still not looking up, Lily said, "But really, should you be telling me any of this?"

"Probably not," Charlie said "It’s sort of a big burden to carry Sort of - "

"A dirty job?" Lily looked up now and grinned

"Yeah," Charlie sain"

"That’s okay It’s kind of cool"

"Really?" Charlie couldn’t re to hi"

"Yeah, right," Charlie said Yes! Still batting a thousand on the zero-cool quotient "But you’re right, it’s not safe No more talk about ain," Lily said "Ever"

"That would be fine," Charlie said "We’ll act like this never happened Excellent Good talk Resume your thinly veiled conte for hi when he took his walk He expected it, and he wasn’t disappointed He’d stopped in the shop to pick up an Italian suit he’d just taken in, as well as a cigar lighter that had languished in a curio case in the back for two years, which he stuffed in his satchel with the glowing porcelain bear that was the soul vessel of soo Then he stepped outside and stood just above the opening of the storm drain - waved at the tourists on the cable car as it clanked by

"Good ht have thought he was greeting the day, since there was no one around

"We’ll peck out her eyes like ripe plu us up, Meat Bring us up so we can lap your blood fro wound we tear in your chest"

"And crunch your bones in our jaws like candy," added a different voice, also fereed the first voice, "like candy"

"Yeah," said a third

Charlie felt his entire body go to gooseflesh, but he shook it off and tried to keep his voice steady

"Well, today would be a good day for it," Charlie said "I’ in ht in a sewer or anything"

"Bastard!" A hissing female chorus

"Well, talk to you on the next block"

Strolled up the block into Chinatown, pacing out the sidewalk jauntily with his sword-cane, the suit inside a light gar, but thought that ht be a little too clich�� They were already under the next corner when he got there

"I’h her soft spot while you watch, Meat"

"Oh, nice!" Charlie said, gritting his teeth and trying not to sound as horrified as he was "She’s starting to crawl around pretty well now, so don’t miss breakfast that day, because if she has her little rubber spoon, she’ll probably kick your ass"

There was a screech of anger fro chatter "He can’t say that? Can he say that? Does he knoe are?"

"Taking a left at the next block See you there"

There was a young Chinese man dressed in hip-hop ho looked at Charlie and took a quick step to the side so as not to catch whatever kind of crazy this well-dressed Lo pak[1] was carrying Charlie tapped his ear and said, "Sorry, wireless headset"

The hip-hop guy nodded curtly, like he knew that, and despite appearances to the contrary, he had not been trippin’, but had, in fact, been chillin’ like a a He crossed against the light, liht of the subtext

Charlie entered Golden Dragon Cleaners and the man at the counter, Mr Hu, whoreeted him with an expansive and war, and a good indicator to Charlie that the oldblack holder clinched in Hu’s dentures

"Good , Mr Hu," Charlie said "Beautiful day, isn’t it?"

"Suit?" said Mr Hu, looking at the suit Charlie had slung over his shoulder

"Yes, just the one today," Charlie said Charlie brought all of his finer on to be cleaned, and he’d been giving them a lot of business the last fewin He also had them do his alterations, and Mr Hu was considered to be the best three-fingered tailor on the West Coast, and perhaps, the world Three Fingered Hu, he was known as in Chinatown, although to be fair, he was actually possessed of eight fingers, and was only ht hand

"Tailor?" Hu asked

"No, thank you," Charlie said "This one’s for resale, not for ed it, then called, "One suit for the White Devil!" in Mandarin, and one of his granddaughters caone through the curtain before Charlie could see her face "One suit for the White Devil," she repeated for soered Hu He handed Charlie the ticket

"There’s so else," Charlie said

"Okay, Tuesday," said Hu, "but no discount"

"No, Mr Hu, I know it’s been a long time since I needed it, but I wonder if you still have your other business?"

Mr Hu closed one eye and looked at Charlie for a full minute before he replied When he did, he said, "Co a cloud of cigarette sh a noisy, steale irons, and a dozen scurrying employees to a tiny plyalled office in the back, where Hu closed the door and locked the they’d first done over twenty years ago

The first tiian back rooon Cleaners, the ten-year-old Beta Male was sure that he was going to be kidnapped and sold into dry-cleaning slavery, butchered and turned into dihters at once while still in his pj’s (Charlie had a very tenuous grasp of his neighbors’ culture at age ten), but despite his fear, he was driven by a passion that had been eo: a quest for fire Yes, it was a crafty Beta Male who first discovered fire, and true, it was almost immediately taken away from him by an Alpha Male (Alphas missed out on the discovery of fire, but because they did not understand about grabbing the hot, orangey end of the stick, they are credited with inventing the third-degree burn) Still, the original spark burns bright in every Beta’s veins When Alpha boys have long sincepyrotechnics well into adolescence and sometimes beyond Alpha Males may lead the aret the shit blowed up

And what better testi critical digits? Three Fingered Hu When Hu opened his thick, trifold case across the desk, revealing his wares, young Charlie felt he had passed through the fires of hell to arrive, at last, in paradise, and he gladly handed over his wad of cru silver ashes froarette fell over the fuses like deadly snow, Charlie picked his pleasure He was so excited he nearly peed hi Charlie alked out of Golden Dragon Cleaners thatwith a compact paper parcel tucked under his arainst his nature, he was rushing, once again, into the breech He headed to the stor porcelain bear fro over one block and up four, bitches Join one around the bend," said Three Fingered Hu’s eleventh grandchild, Cindy Lou Hu, who stood at the counter next to her venerated and digitally challenged ancestor

"His money not crazy," said Three

Charlie had noticed the alley on one of his walks to the financial district It lay between Montgoood alley should have: fire escapes, Duraffiti, a rat, two seagulls, assorted filth, a guy passed out under sons, three with bullet holes It was the Platonic ideal of an alley, but what distinguished it fros into the storm-drain system, spaced not fifty yards apart, one on the street end and one in therecently developed an eye for storm drains, Charlie couldn’t help but notice

He chose the drain that was hidden from the street, crouched down about four feet away, and opened the parcel froht M-80s and tri waterproof fuses to about a half inch with a pair of nail clippers he kept on his key chain (An M-80 is a very large firecracker, purported to have the explosive power of a quarter of a stick of dynamite Rural children use the, but in the city they have largely been replaced by the 9 mm Glock pistol as the preferred instrument of mischievous fun)